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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Beyond the Single Button World: Technology Interaction

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Blue vivid image of globe and space tin can flickr photo by Patrick Bombaert shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license “The switch is either on or off.” — Jonathan Josephson In another video from an intriguing collection around transformation of storytelling, Jonathan Josephson explores the ways we interact with our technology, reminding us that the binary basis — the ones and zeros that make up the backbone of our technology — is both limited and non-intuitive for telling stories. […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Final Reflections: Networked Narratives from Out Here in the Wild Open

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The second iteration of Networked Narratives has been over for at least a few weeks now, and I’ve had a version of this reflection sort of sitting here in my blog draft bin. I’ve watched Alan Levine, one of the instructors, post his reflection yesterday from a teacher perspective (which was insightful to peruse). I’ve read through and enjoyed Wendy Taleo‘s reflection and presentation she gave about a project in Networked Narratives that we launched. I’ve skimmed through some of […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Last Round of #NetNarr Daily Digital Alchemy Poems

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I’ve shared out a few collections of small poetic responses that I have done for the past few months with Networked Narratives, and the Daily Alchemy, which now ends its semester run. This is the final collection, with a few odds and ends poems tossed into the mix, too. I’m still thinking of how to bring all of the poems — literally, in the dozens and nearly 100 since January, but each poem is only six seconds long — together. […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Book Review: The Quest of Theseus (An Interactive Mythological Adventure)

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I’m always curious about interactive books, and since my students work on their own interactive fiction stories, I’m always on the look-out for more mentor texts for the classroom. This book — The Quest of Theseus — is a new series for me, but it seems as if it is part of a set of mythological heroes, with the reader having agency to make decisions about the actions and lead the story into different elements of the hero’s tales. Here, […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Book Review: The Art of Immersion in the Age of Digital Media

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I had purchased The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue and the Way We Tell Stories by Frank Rose on my Kindle app during the first week of the first Networked Narratives, thinking that Rose’s text might be a nice dovetail to NetNarr. (Admission: this book review has been sitting in my draft bin … for some time. Interestingly, it still holds together with some of the projects I did in the second iteration of […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Lyric Share: Alchemist Dream (Sleep Deep)

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Yesterday, I shared out a collaborative music project that I have been involved with as part of the Mastodon federated network. A Whale’s Lantern brings together and connects random musicians, and then they work on the writing and recording of a song together over distant communications. The first round of A Whale’s Lantern (entitled Flight Into the Nebula), I did a song with my friend, Laura, and this second round (entitled Everything Is Made of Smaller Parts), I collaborated with […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Music By Collaboration: A Whale’s Lantern (Everything is Made of Smaller Parts)

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The second round of music by collaboration — known by the project title A Whale’s Lantern — has now been released, and the theme of the musical pieces was The Elements. The album is located for listening, and for downloading, at Bandcamp. The whole project is built on collaboration — from the songwriting, to the recording, to the production. Each song represents a different collaborative partnership. Everything Is Made Of Smaller Parts by A Whale’s Lantern I was paired up […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Book Review: Broad Band (The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet)

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History, it’s said, is told by the ones who win. Which makes me wonder with discomfort why I, an avid reader of technology, never thought about the question of “Where are all the women?” whenever I have read histories of the Internet and technology in the past. Broad Band (The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet), by Claire Evans, sets the record straight, and does so with depth and storytelling. I’m glad to have discovered it. Evans, […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Everyday Alchemy (video collection, continued)

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I’m still deep into making daily alchemy with the Networked Narratives daily prompts (known as the Daily Arganee), but I suspect with the university courses nearing the end of the semester, the dailies will begin to fade off. Which is fine. (NetNarr is a combination of two university courses taught by Alan Levine and Mia Zamora, and anyone else on the open web who wanders in.) Until the daily prompts end, I’ll continue to try to arrive at something poetic […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Video: Ethics of Immersive Digital Storytelling

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(image via Andrea Phillips) A conversation recently unfolded on Twitter about Transmedia Storytelling, in which author and transmedia storyteller Andrea Phillips joined in, adding an interesting wrinkle to the discussion. The context you may be missing: there’s a long tradition of using social and digital media as if they were a real thing — people or organizations on FB, Twitter, LinkedIn. — Andrea Phillips (@andrhia) April 8, 2018 She voiced concern over the ethics and responsibility of digital storytellers, particularly […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Trading Privacy for Profit When You’re the Product

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Processing 06 flickr photo by crstnksslr shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license Funny. This post is NOT about Facebook. But it could have been … We had a disagreement brewing in the kitchen the other day. My wife and I, and our three boys (the oldest, in college, and the youngest, in middle school). The whole family. The dog watched. We were arguing about privacy, and technology, and the split between my wife and I (we both try to […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Upon Reflection, Part Three: Creating a Virtual Gallery of Digital Art

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As I write this, a week after launching the Alchemy Lab of Digital Objects, I am looking at stats for the immersive space. The space has been visited nearly 300 times and objects within the lab itself have been “clicks/viewed” nearly 700 times. Not everything worth writing about is data-driven, but at least, the numbers show us that people are giving the Lab a look, which is satisfying. The other day, I posted the first of a series of reflections […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Upon Reflection, Part Two: Creating a Virtual Gallery of Digital Art

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Yesterday, I posted the first of a few reflections on the collaboration and thinking, and making, that went into the building of the online NetNarr Alchemy Lab of Digital Objects. This post is the follow-up, with more reflections on things that seemed to work and things didn’t seem to work (as well as I would have liked). One more post tomorrow will look at potential next steps and following up with the Alchemy Lab experience. Visit the NetNarr Alchemy Lab […]

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Open Participants 2018, The Network

Upon Reflection, Part One: Creating a Virtual Gallery of Digital Art

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Ideas and Inspirations This all began when I had a crazy, inspired thought that I decided not to keep to myself (because how much fun would that be?): What if the (open and university) folks dabbling in Networked Narratives together created a collaborative piece of transmedia artwork together? I had recently been thinking more about transmedia storytelling — about how to try to tell a story that unfolds across different digital media and mediums, each piece with the ability to […]

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